Affliction Brought by an Irish Interval

it’s getting darker and colder
and I wish you were here,
on this couch, closer
snuggled into each other’s wrap
or lying on your lap
drinking the fountain in your mouth
playing the strings of your lips,
how I wish you were here.

a body and some clothes:
so have you left me behind.
a second hand in the clock-
I’m running after you
my mind and musings without
like a cloud over your head
touching, yet not
watching your every step
walking together
being one
us…

-

here, drink my dreams
from the chalice of my lips,
put on my wings
and take me underneath
cozy and snug,
like a warm blanket’s care.

fly we shall
over the dusty clouds
beyond the blue dome
in a graceful dance
until the earth’s a star
and night’s opium calls.

here, drink my dreams
from the chalice of my heart
let’s dream on and on
together and awaken
in forever’s land.

for darling, don’t you know
where your breath falls on me
is the farthest we can be
and so how can we even fathom
being a dream apart?

a dream apart?

-

how does being heard
has anything to do with
finding your voice?

i write a line or two
and see it go away from me
where it is headed
or whom it reaches
i don’t know but why should i?

writing or speaking
and wanting it to get heard
is like watching the sun
and wanting it to see you back.

for there is nothing outside
everything else is a fiction,
not a lie as some would prefer,
rather like a touch of fantasy
decorating our dumb ideas.

Still I write
still I will write
even if they end up
mummified in a tomb
or in another galaxy
burst into ashes.

Still I will write
for how does being heard
has anything to do with
finding your voice?

-

this book with a name on my lap,
the whirls of steam from coffee cup,
this whole image in the mirror,
or these strange combination of words,
what is real?

bought a friend a book with the same name,
vanished the steam, my coffee turned cold,
broke the mirror: I a million pieces,
and forgotten was my poetry in time,
what is real?

“they are but a copy of a copy”,
laughed an old man in Greece,
“it is but a trial to the life after it”
the Father and the Son said too,
is real not real then?

but what’s this force beating against my heart,
the river of thoughts flowing to a world
far from the feet of another man,
the odd joy of full life in head,
can they be true, my imagination: my Maya?

-

Why become like them
when you can be yourself?
Why be one among them
when you can be the one?

-

in the digital age
your passport photo
in my wallet.

-

Sunday:
the sound of turning
last few pages of a book.

-

It has been raining for hours now
The rivers are full, 
the dam, the paddy fields 
So too is my heart
Full to its last piece.
How I wish to lose my fingers
in your silky hair and read to you
my favorite poem, or a novel 
or simply watch you as you slip into thoughts.
I want to empty this full heart into you
Pour it out through my poetry falling from my lips.

Let me be that crack in wall,
that squeezed-out-to-death toothpaste,
that half-broken nib in pencil,
I want to pour into you every piece of me,
and flood you with all this love in me.
Let me fall into you word by word,
until your ears are full, 
Let me fall into you word by word,
until I am nothing more than flesh and blood,
Let me fall into you word by word,
until your heart is home to all my love.

-

All it takes for an elephant
to fly the sky is
a little imagination.

-

Dear Drafts,

I hear you. I am guilty. I'm guilty of a charge more severe than murder. And it haunts my mind day in and out. At nights, I hear things and wake up bathed in sweat. I refuse to come back to you because when I do, I'd shrink under your accusing looks. Like a mother standing in awe not getting the right words to beg forgiveness of her orphaned kid. My skin burns. I know I filled the words in your page with so much vain hopes that you believed I'd return when I left. But I never did. And I might never will.

I guess you're dead by now. I regret it when the ghosts of my unpublished works make my mind a graveyard. Yes, I could've brought you into this world, if I had forced myself on you. But you would have been just an eye sore. Like an irreparable vase out of shape. No buyers would come for you. No flowers would bloom in you. No heated bargain. If it was my fault to want to give you a full life on your own right, then I agree I'm guilty. I beg my pardon.

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